1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an information processing apparatus for managing document data and displaying document information corresponding to the document data, its processing method, and its storage medium.
2. Description of the Related Art
When an image, a page of a document, or the like is displayed, a thumbnail (also referred to as a thumbnail image) is used as a reduced representative image in order to raise a visibility. Even if it is difficult to discriminate contents by file names or the like with respect to documents which are managed by folders or document management software in a PC (Personal Computer), by seeing the thumbnail, a whole image of the image or document can be easily recognized.
Therefore, an OS (Operating System) and many document management software have a thumbnail forming function. As a display format of the files, a list display in which bibliographic information of the document is displayed and a thumbnail display are performed.
As a displaying method of the thumbnails, there is a method whereby the thumbnails can be freely arranged in a display area of software, a method whereby the thumbnails are arranged and displayed in accordance with areas which were rezoned in a lattice shape in a display area, or the like.
In the case of arranging and displaying the thumbnails, as arranging order, the thumbnails are sorted and displayed in such order that they are horizontally arranged starting from the upper left position of the display area and reaching the right edge and are subsequently arranged from the left edge of the second column to the right edge of the second column.
Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2004-246582 discloses such a technique that in a display list area of thumbnails, the thumbnails are classified and displayed in the display area which were partitioned in a lattice shape on the basis of a plurality of management information.
However, according to the thumbnail display in the related art as disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2004-246582, the documents are sorted based on the document names and thumbnail-displayed, or the documents are thumbnail-displayed every classification of the documents, or the documents are displayed in storing order of the document stored in each folder in the document management system. Therefore, there is a case where such a thumbnail display is unsuitable for management in FAX order-receiving business.
The FAX order-receiving business is a business in which FAX-received data is converted into images and registered into the document management system and an order-receiving operation is executed on the document management system on the basis of the received FAX data.
Reasons why the foregoing thumbnail display is unsuitable for the FAX order-receiving business are as follows.
For example, when there are a plurality of operators who perform the FAX order-receiving business, a folder is formed in the document management system every operator and each operator sequentially processes the documents input to the folder. In such a case, as an operation, since the documents are sequentially processed in inputting order of the documents which were input to the folders, the thumbnail display is set and operated in such a manner that the thumbnails are arranged and displayed in order of time/date at which the document was input to each folder from the old time/date.
According to such a mechanism that the thumbnails are displayed in order of time/date at which the document was input to the folder from the old time/date as mentioned above, if the document was erroneously input to another folder, when the operator who uses such a folder processes the document which was erroneously input, an operation to input the document to a proper folder again is executed. Therefore, according to such a mechanism that the thumbnails are sorted and displayed on the basis of the time/date at which the document was input to the folder, such a document is determined as a new document and is displayed at the last position in the displaying order of the thumbnails.
Consequently, in spite of a fact that the document is not a document to be inherently processed at last (that is, it is a document to be processed early), it is displayed at the last position in the layout of the thumbnails. Therefore, a problem in which the operator is not aware of such a fact and the process of the document is delayed occurs.
There is also considered a method whereby the thumbnails are arranged and displayed in order from the old time/date by using the time/date at which the FAX was received or the time/date at which the FAX data was converted into the image and the image data was formed. However, according to such a method, for example, there is a case where if there is an administrator who distributes the documents to the folders, when the administrator has inputted the documents in such order that he wants to request the operator to process them, the displaying order of the thumbnails is rearranged in accordance with the time/date at which the document was received, so that such a method is unsuitable.
Particularly, in the FAX order-receiving business, since a response time (a primary answer is made to the orderer within ∘ days, the ordered articles are delivered within Δ days, or the like) is often set to a landmark, there is also a case where if the documents are not displayed in processing order, a leakage of processes occurs and it is difficult to accomplish the landmark.